Friday, July 8, 2016

Hat-tip to the Clarion Project for this succinct and accurate video about the threat of civilizational jihad and sharia as the motives behind terrorist acts. This is the sort of thing people in the west need to know. So what did YouTube do. They banned the video. read more about that at the Counter Jihad link.

Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Here's a new open comment thread you all, my friends! Speaking of friends....

Stop the madness, or proceed with the madness, or go halfway or maybe two thirds... Or, how about do 3 sets of 12 madness lifts twice a day. Or maybe have a madness shake with some kale and blue berries? Or something.

I was thinking that maybe a good topic to discuss here is frenetic, undisciplined migrations to nearby towns and whether that is a conservative value. Or maybe moving because no one understands you or sour cream vandalism going on that you can no longer protect your family from. This might be a good post to review for starters as well.

One of the ways I keep up on what's going on with Rod Dreher is by reading a Topix forum dedicated to him by the residents of St. Francisville. Here's one of the latest entries, suggesting that Dreher flew to Hawaii to bring back a parting gift in the form of a pineapple for his priest who's leaving his backyard church.
The real story will be forgotten, though, while the memory of that picture lives on forever....

The natives were so grateful for his missionary work they gave him a pineapple.

Monday, July 4, 2016

Kotkin sums up exactly the way I want to respond every time I hear a Trump supporter/defender say "he's not racist". Okay; walking like a duck is something our intelligent species can do without becoming ducks, but why would we do it? Maybe to get some really gullible ducks to follow us around.

In reality, Trump is not a classic racist, but rather an ugly opportunist willing to use ethnic divides for his own benefit. He’s been compared to Adolph Hitler, a monster whose philosophy revolved around race, but Trump has no real theory that extends beyond self-glorification, resentment, and attracting the fetching female; “The Art of the Deal” is not “Mein Kampf.”

Trump will play the race card as a way to satisfy his narcissistic need for enthusiastic admirers. This does not mean his approach does not echo the racism of the past. His claim of bias by a U.S.-born judge of Mexican descent, as well as his suggestions that Muslim jurists are incapable of ruling independently, recall the worst of the pre-Civil Rights South. His proposals to ban Muslim immigrants in general recall approaches in the late 19th and early 20th centuries which targeted Chinese, Japanese and, ultimately eastern and southern Europeans.

In short, you don't have to be Hitler to be awful, or to have bad intentions, or to be a wrecking ball for your own movement. When people were calling Obama a communist back in 2008 I was cringing because I knew it would be pretty easy to dismiss the charge. After all, what communist would save General Motors? Barack Obama had to have been secretly smiling every time someone tossed that accusation at him or its even stupider twin sister—the charge that he was born in Kenya. Leave the fact that it wouldn't have mattered if he had been (his mother is an American citizen), it just made everyone making it seem like an instant racist to the general populace.

Yes, Virginia—that general populace. The one which elects Presidents. Not the subsection of critical thinkers or people with degrees in the hard sciences.

So when I heard people saying Trump could be the next Hitler I cringed as well knowing that a few black and Jewish friends will effectively dismiss that charge while a host of others would point at the media, shout "See they call us all racist!" and reflexively support Trump even though his rhetoric is incendiary.

I am not the only person who sees it this way. Larry Elder had been more generous to Donald Trump than many of the other Salem Radio hosts, but boy, did he about lose it when the whole thing about the "Mexican" Judge came out. This all happened shortly after Trump had all but secured the GOP nomination. Elder's conclusion is worth noting: "As found as people are of Donald Trump, if you give him a pass on this it means you have no integrity."

I should probably just accept my new status as politically homeless. Get out the cardboard and lets light a barrel fire.

The Fight Against Evil

"It is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one." — Gandalf the Wizard, The Fellowship of the Ring